Local artist and gallery owner weigh in on guerrilla art displays

Claude Villani, owner of Galerie Sono, has reservations about unsanctioned public displays of artwork like what was seen this week in South Norwalk.

Hour photo / Erik Trautmann

Claude Villani, owner of Galerie Sono, has reservations about unsanctioned public displays of artwork like what was seen this week in South Norwalk.

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Hour photo / Erik Trautmann

Claude Villani, owner of Galerie Sono, has reservations about unsanctioned public displays of artwork like what was seen this week in South Norwalk.

Hour photo / Erik Trautmann

Claude Villani, owner of Galerie Sono, has reservations about unsanctioned public displays of artwork like what was seen this week in South Norwalk.

Local artist and gallery owner weigh in on guerrilla art displays

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NORWALK — While the puzzle of the painting that mysteriously appeared this past week under the South Norwalk Railroad Bridge and then disappeared just as quickly has been solved, comments about unsanctioned artistic pop-ups has been sparked in the local art world.

For Sue Brown Gordon, an artist, former chair of the Sono Arts Festival and current chair of Norwalk Arts Festival, the pop-up art was a delightful spontaneous expression of creativity.

“I think this was so cool,” Gordon said. “I’m all for it. I feel that anything that brings culture and visual stimulation makes our daily lives that much happier.”

Creating a buzz locally, an anonymous artist hung an abstract painting on Feb. 3 on the South Main Street side of the South Norwalk Railroad Bridge. The painting, which featured a woman's face, a giant heart, a pair of hands, a blur of colors, a few common text message phrases and the words "More than machinery, we need humanity" in large letters, appeared during the early morning commute. An artist signature was not visible on the front of the painting.

South Norwalk was the first stop on a cross-country tour for the “My Gallery is Outside” exhibition, which will travel to Denver, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

“Public exhibitions, such as the guerrilla display in SoNo, are part of a larger movement to " reduce the power that galleries have over art trends," according to a statement from My Gallery is Outside.

"I don't want to be negative to galleries. They have their place, but this is something very different," Gordon said. "What I do think is that the more cultural stimulation people see, the better."

The SoNo painting brought to Gordon's mind the methods of British artist nicknamed “Bansky” who is known for displaying pop-up art installations in London.

"Banksy is an artist in London who creates these surprise installations of avant garde sculptures that appear and then disappear throughout the city," she said. "It becomes a wonderful mystery, just as this painting is."

Street art, such as the painting in SoNo, brings the artistic experience to a new level, Gordon said.

"A person driving by in a car can instantly become an art critic," she said. “I’m really impressed, that is not an easy place to hang a painting.”

Gordon promises that there will be some similar surprises at the Norwalk Art Festival in June, 2015.

“We will definitely have some surprises there too,” Gordon said. “That’s the kind of thing that makes art exciting.”

Claude Villani, owner of Galerie Sono at 123 Washington St. was less enthusiastic than Gordon about the appearance of the unsanctioned painting.

“Don’t get me wrong, I think everyone has the right to express themselves, but I’m not sure that they have the right to display just anywhere,” he said. “When you compare something like that to what is displayed in a fine art gallery, well, there is no comparison.”

Villani, who has owned Galerie Sono for 16 years ,cited the amount of work and training involved in creating fine art.

“Creating art isn’t something that just happens magically — you don’t hang a picture and feel that you’ve made an artistic statement any more than you would pick up an instrument and be a fine musician,” he said. “It all takes a good amount of work.”

The Sono painting is part of a national exhibition that "directly targets commissioned or sanctioned art," according to a statement from the exhibition's anonymous figurehead.

"There are thousands of starving artists out in this great world. We do not need 4 white gallery walls in order to show our artistic pieces," the statement reads. "In the art world, you find a various cast of characters but filtering through the eccentric cluster of snobs and know-it-alls you have 2 categories, the artists and the buyers. Once artists receive money for their paintings, the purity and integrity slightly diminishes. ...The world needs art now more than ever. It should be available and accessible to whomever appreciates art not just the upper class.”